


An Eluvian Darkly: Legacy

by wargoddess



Series: Prompts [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-11
Updated: 2014-03-11
Packaged: 2018-01-15 09:23:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1299865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wargoddess/pseuds/wargoddess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I've used blood magic, Cull.  I'm so sorry."</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Eluvian Darkly: Legacy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CReed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CReed/gifts).
  * Inspired by [An Eluvian Darkly](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1135282) by [wargoddess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wargoddess/pseuds/wargoddess). 



> From a prompt on Tumblr: what if the Carver of "An Eluvian Darkly" had been kidnapped and forced to use blood magic, as Malcolm was by the Wardens per the DA2 DLC "Legacy"? And Cullen found out? You really should read "An Eluvian Darkly" to get the nuances of this one, but consider it an AU to the AU -- just a "what if."

When Carver disappears, Cullen does nothing.  At first.

This goes against his every instinct.  Carver is a mage bound to him as charge; Carver is his lover; Carver is a Templar and his second-in-command; Carver is his own guardian, charged with keeping Cullen from corruption.  But all of these things are voluntary on Carver’s part.  Cullen has always known that Carver might someday decide he no longer wants Cullen as his partner.  It hurts that this has happened without warning, because Carver seemed happy with him, but… it would not be the first time that Cullen’s heart has been broken.

Only gradually does sense percolate through the misery, and it finally occurs to Cullen that foul play might be involved.  He is used to thinking of Carver as strong — not a particularly accomplished mage, not the finest warrior, but rock solid in his convictions, and not the sort to be waylaid easily.  Nor the sort to abandon a lover, a partner, a friend, without talking (or yelling) about it first.  Which means that something is _wrong_.

He sends out his hunters, but there are no witnesses, no clues, no directions in which to strike or search.  He broods at the top of the Circle Tower, and thinks of grieving, but will not allow himself to do this — yet.  And then, just as he has begun to despair, a month later… Carver returns.

#

He is haggard and thin and will not meet Cullen’s eyes when Cullen impulsively pulls him into an embrace.  So Cullen brings him up to their quarters, troubled by the mage’s stillness.  When he asks Carver what has happened, finally, haltingly, Carver tells him.  The Wardens.  _Kidnapping him_.  A prison, hidden in the bowels of the earth.  An ancient horror, thankfully returned to sleep for a few more generations.  But at the end of the recitation, Carver stands and draws his sword, and hands it to Cullen hilt-first.  “Carver?”

Carver drops to his knees.  Unhitches his gorget and sets it aside, to bare his throat and chest.  He looks at Cullen at last, and Cullen flinches at the bleakness in Carver’s face. “Blood magic,” he says at last, heavily.  Cullen stiffens.  “I've used blood magic, Cull.  I’m so sorry.”

The urge to kill him is not as strong as it should be.

"Explain," he says instead, even though the Chant says _suffer not the blood mage to live, or even to speak_.  Even though he knows the danger of corruption.  But.  Carver is his responsibility.  If Carver has failed, then… then so has Cullen.  And he needs to understand why.

Carver shakes his head, mulishly.  “Doesn’t matter.  You know what you need to do.”

“ _Explain_.”

"It doesn’t bloody matter!"  Carver glares up at him, angry and anguished.  "You _know_ you can’t show me favor. You have to be spotless, and I’m already such a great hulking clod, so bloody _useless_ to everything you’re trying to do.  It’s why they picked me, because you’re the one who has to go on, I couldn’t let them, I wouldn’t — “

Cullen hisses, too furious and horrified for words.  He throws the sword aside with a loud clatter and goes to Carver, dropping to his knees as well, gripping Carver’s arms and shaking him.  “Explain, in the Maker’s name, or so help me — “

Wait.  Carver had said he couldn’t let them... couldn't let them do what?  _You’re the one who has to go on_.

"They threatened _me_ ,” Cullen says, inhaling.  “You performed blood magic… to save me?”  He thinks of what Carver had told him, of the monstrous darkspawn-magister.  “To save the world.”

Carver’s jaw flexes.  “I told them _the world_ could go to the Void, and let the Maker sort it all out.”

Then Carver did it only for Cullen.  He closes his eyes and bows his head, aching.  “Why did you tell me this?”  If Carver had concealed it… if he had lied… but these things are not in Carver’s nature.  Carver is strong, and honorable.  That is why Cullen made him a Templar.

And no mage, but _especially_ not a Templar, can be permitted to wield blood magic.  Ever.

"I told them they’d killed me the instant they made me cut my hand.  But you know Wardens:  victory at all costs."  Carver takes his hand.  "And I told you this ‘cause I told you a long time ago… I won’t have anyone else killing me, Cull."

Carver’s _smiling_ , that’s the perverse thing.  Smiling, and drawing his belt knife, and folding Cullen’s limp fingers around it.  Pulling the knife, and Cullen’s hand, into position, with the knife tip resting on the skin of his breast.

Cullen’s hand shakes.  “No.”  He has done this to Meredith, whom he also loved, but only as a last resort, only because she was beyond hope.  “Not you.  Please.”

"'Blessed are those who stand before the corrupt and the wicked,'" Carver says softly.  "Don’t falter on me now, Cull."

He cannot do this, not again.  It nearly killed him — killed his mind, killed his soul — before.  The Maker asks too much of him.  He is only a man.

Carver sighs.  And suddenly, horribly, Cullen feels the tightening of Carver’s hand around his wrist, and the bunching of Carver’s muscles, and he _sees_ the resolve enter Carver’s eyes —

_**NO!** _

He doesn’t mean the Smite.  It’s not his way, to hurt mages without cause, or to misuse the gifts that the Maker and the Order have given him. It’s just an instinctive reaction to a dire, existential threat.  He Smites, and the room shakes, and Carver sags, stunned.

By the time Carver recovers, Cullen has moved to the corner of the room.  It is how he felt safest, back then, in the cage.  Nothing is safe with a blood mage in the room, nothing will ever be safe again, but the blood mage is _Carver_ and — and — and.  He shakes.  He cannot stop shaking. But he can talk.

"Y-you cannot," he says, after Carver has groaned and come over and sighed at the sight of him.  "Ask such a thing.  O-of me."  He takes a deep breath, tries to marshall his thoughts.  "I will _break_ , C-Carver.  Every man has a limit.  I will break and never mend.  If you die then I will not be long behind, whether that means my going mad or leaping from the Tower’s roof.  I cannot _bear_ it.”

Carver stares at him in silence, and belatedly Cullen realizes it is the same thing the Wardens have done to him.  Using Cullen’s life as the leash to bend Carver to their will.  It is not what he intends, certainly, but that is the outcome.  And... he cannot bring himself to regret it.  If it keeps Carver alive --

\-- a blood mage, if it keeps a blood mage alive, but _the blood mage is Carver_ \--

\-- then he will use any means at his disposal to achieve that goal.  It is wrong.  But it is the truth.

Carver sighs, slumping to sit beside him in the corner, back to Cullen’s back.  He says nothing for a long while.  Then heavily:  “I’ll resign my commission as a Templar.”

That is fitting, if cruel.  Carver has spent his life yearning to wear the flame. But a Templar — _Cullen’s_ Templar — must be beyond reproach.  Cullen nods, jerkily.

"I’ll go to Kirkwall."  What?  Cullen frowns.  "Submit myself to the Gallows.  A blood mage can’t be running about unsupervised.  The First Enchanter there, I don’t know him.  He’ll be impartial, not like Irving.  I can trust him to do what’s right."

But oh, Maker, no.  Cullen knows what this means.  “Carver — “

"You _can’t_ be my Templar anymore, Cull.”  Carver’s voice is tight, too loud, before he controls himself.  “Not if you won’t do your duty.  Magic will serve what is best in me — _You’re_ what's best in me!  I won’t stay here and risk sullying that.”

Cullen closes his eyes, reverberating with the pain of loss.

"But I won’t bear another Templar, either." Carver sighs and shifts, rubbing a hand over his hair.   "So… so it’ll have to be the Circle.  Mages have to be watched, yeah?  Blood mages especially."  Carver shrugs.  "And if they don’t make me Tranquil --

" _Not_ Tranquil."  Cullen blurts the words without thinking.

There is a pause.  Then Carver says, softly, relentlessly, "Not your place to say anymore, Cull."

Oh, Maker.  Oh, no, no.

Carver continues.  "If they don't make me Tranquil, at least you’ll know I'm all right somewhere.  You can see me now and again, if Knight Commander Keran lets you.  I’ll write.  It’ll be… something."

More than Cullen would have if Carver died.  And a fitting punishment for both of them, since both of them have now been corrupted by this.

Carver falls silent, then, and Cullen does too.  There’s nothing more to be said for it, nothing more to be done.  Except… to accept.

**Author's Note:**

> I thought this was a nice thought exercise. But as I explained to the person who sent me the prompt (hi CReed!), I think this is the worse of two possible fates for these guys. Fate 1 is Cullen killing Carver, and then killing himself in some way or another: outright suicide, drinking himself to death, ODing on lyrium, or just snapping and pulling a mental bluescreen. Fate 2 is what you see here: one or both of the men falters in their integrity, and it dooms a relationship whose whole premise is that they'll keep each other from corruption. Personally I think Fate 1 is the more noble option... but predictable, and I hate writing predictable stuff. ::wan smile::


End file.
